Can Washington Caps Meet NHL Hockey Betting Win Total?

The Washington Capitals’ NHL hockey betting win total for the 2017-18 season is 50½. If there were an award for the team who had the best regular season the Caps would surely win it. oh wait, there is; the Presidents’ Trophy which is presented by the National Hockey League to the team that finishes with the best record (most points) during the regular season, and which the Caps have won twice in a row – as people who enjoy online hockey betting must surely be aware of. Unfortunately for the Capitals winning the Trophée des presidents seldom translates to Stanley Cup success, but that’s a subject for another day.

The Caps won 56 games in 2015-16 and 55 last season so 50.5 this seasons should be a feasible goal, all things being equal. As it turns out, though, the Washington Caps may have had the best regular season but they may also have had arguably the worst possible offseason. Defenseman Nate Schmidt was left exposed by the team in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft and selected by the Vegas Golden Knights, Justin Williams was allowed to enter the free agency market and returned to Carolina, Marcus Johansson was traded to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for second and third round picks in 2018, Kevin Shattenkirk left for the New York Rangers, and Karl Alzner left the Capitals as a free agent following nine seasons and agreed to a five-year contract with the Montreal Canadiens.

One could say the Washington Caps’ NHL hockey betting win total is optimistic in the face of all of these departures – the perhaps unwilling sacrifices general manager Brian MacLellan had to make to keep Alex Ovechkin, Niklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, Braden Holtby and Evgeny Kuznetsov within salary cap space. “I want people to know: We’ve got a good team,” MacLellan said. “We have good goaltending. We have skilled players. We’re going to have to see how [Christian] Djoos plays, how [Lucas] Johansen plays. We might take a little while to get up to speed in that area. I guess there’s a little uncertainty. But I feel good.”

There is no denying the fact that the Caps have a lost quite a bit of talent, but could turn out to be addition by subtraction? After all, sometimes less is more and no doubt MacLellan would be content with a few wins less if it meant they would go past the second round of the postseason, and he would certainly be glad to exchange the Presidents’ Trophy for Lord Stanley’s Cup. Maybe all of this is the wake-up call that the Caps needed to finally return to the Stanley Cup Finals and win their second conference title, neither of which they have accomplished since the 1997-98 season. And lo and behold, they managed to win “only” 40 games that season. All things considered, failing to live up to their NHL hockey betting win total might very well be the best thing that could happen to the Washington Capitals.